The Wine of God
[“I am the vine that fills your cup with joy” (from “Take and Eat” by Fr. Michael Joncas [b. 1951]).]
O Lover,
One of the richer images in biblical writings is that of wine. In the Hebrew Bible wine can appear as a libational offering or blessing in festivals, and in the vision of a healed creation (e.g., Is 25:6). The frequent connotation is that of luxuriousness and lavishness. In the newer testament wine’s central role is as part of the Eucharist (“thanksgiving”) instituted by Jesus.
While some references in both testaments convey warning against drunkenness, positive links between moderate inebriation and “joy” are numerous: e.g., “[the Lord provides] wine which gladdens the heart of humans, so that they can make their faces glisten” (Ps 104:15) and “drink your wine with a cheerful heart” (Eccl 9:7). In the Christian Scriptures wine is encountered as part of the joyful celebration of marriage (e.g., Jn 2:1-11) as well as in the future messianic banquet (e.g., Mt 26:29). In the letter to the Ephesians the negative and positive kinds of intoxication are contrasted (5:18).
The notion of being “drunk with God” is variously approached in the writings of many Christian mystics: e.g., Pseudo-Dionysius, Aquinas, Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Catherine of Siena, and Richard Rolle in addition to the anonymous Anima Christi prayer including the line sanguis Christi inebria me. Different planes of such profound and transformative encounters with You alluded to include euphoria, passionate love, self-abandonment, lostness, muted silence, and unítas Déi. Composer Joncas in his hymn tellingly places this line in Your mouth: “I am the vine that fills your cup with joy.”
The image of being inebriated with You, O Lover, is not novel for me. When I entered the Discalced Carmelites as a secular in 1996 I took the name “LeRoy of the Wine of God.” The words of Juan de la Cruz were becoming my own: “Ah, . . . now wholly surrender yourself! / Do not send me / any more messengers” (Canticle, #6, EA). Since then I have grown in awareness that beyond this and that which You offer and provide, You, You Yourself, ARE the intoxicant, the joy, the beatific, the One within whom I intermittently long to become and remain lost. Thus my rendering this day of Joncas’s lyric is “You are the very wine that fills my cup with joy!”
The repeated intersection of the above texts of intoxication with You, on the one hand, and ineffable joy, on the other, is especially rich with meaning. Not unlike Eckhart’s Grunt (“Ground”), the depth of joy among us creatures is the depth of You; not unlike Love, there is but one Joy.This grounding in who You are rather than on vacillating moods, developments, or outcomes, is central to the intoxicated life, the Divine-drenched life, thus understood. To experience being drawn toward and into Oceanic You is for me the intoxicating center and depth of joy.
So once again: “You are the very wine that fills my cup with joy!”
